Leon Uris (32 page)

FOUR CORNERS-LABOR DAY WEEKEND
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2007

Sun’s first rays slithered over the rocky bivouac as the hated reveille sounded from a bugler. A groan rose en masse all over the Eagle Scout encampment. Four hundred of them ran, shoeless for the most part and naked, to where Montezuma Creek trickled past under a bluff.

Scoutmasters hustled them. The sun went up high, quickly. Sounds of splattering urine as four hundred young men took turns over the slit trenches.

The column had been in the desert for three days, planning to reach their destination of Mexican Hat at the tip of Glen Canyon day after tomorrow.

Two other columns of Eagle Scouts traversed from different directions toward Mexican Hat. When they converged, twelve hundred, one fourth of the total national number of Eagle Scouts, would hold a jamboree: boating, rafting, a thousand contests of skill and endurance, songs, campfires.

The President of the United States was due to fly in and address them on Monday!

Hank Skelley, a revered old scoutmaster, sat in a circle of his company leaders, pondering a map. Hank was a lean rod of spring steel with dedication to the movement emanating from every move and
gesture. Around him, a smell of bacon to revive any flagging spirits.

Hank looked at his watch. Five
A.M.

“We didn’t pull our weight yesterday. Those trucks breaking down screwed up our entire transport. Darned if we can make it into Mexican Hat tomorrow if we skirt this row of canyons as originally planned.”

Hank’s long, thin, arthritic finger traced an alternative route. “We can cut off about nine and a half miles if we go straight up Six Shooter Canyon.”

“Where does the end of the canyon lead us?”

“Into the rear of an outfit called Hudson Mining and Cattle, a big tumbleweed ranch.”

“I heard that Hudson Mining has some Utah militia training, and they are none too friendly.”

“Well,” Hank answered, “I tried to reach them by cellular phone to get permission to pass through, but their phone didn’t answer.

“Webster,” Hank said to the chief master of Colorado. Webster Penrose inched to the front. “I don’t think anything goes up Six Shooter Canyon anymore, but I’ve flown over it constantly and had occasion to go for three miles to a wide water hole…right here…Bloody Gulch. Now, I don’t think it’s dangerous, except in a winter flash flood that sets the rocks spilling down.”

“Suppose we go in as far as the ranch and are turned away? What about that, Hank?”

“Then we go back to Bloody Gulch and pick up a goat trail out of the canyon. It will put us on the Navajo reservation, and we still will have saved several hours.”

“Possible injuries, Hank?”

“Nothing we can’t deal with,” Webster Penrose interrupted. “We have a helicopter on standby in Farmington.”

At the rear of the circle a clicking sound accompanied by bells ringing turned attention to Brad Bradley, trying to raise White Wolf on his personal computer.

“What kind of shit is this?” Hank Skelley exploded. “Trucks to carry off our bedding and kitchen, ground-control satellites, computers, evacuation helicopter. Excuse my obscenity, but we
are
Eagle Scouts and we aren’t ready to come in out of the cold.”

Agreed. No one had disagreed with Hank for five years, maybe longer.

They broke camp. Bedrolls, the kitchen, and dead weight were piled to be picked up by trucks. Each scout had a two-canteen limit of water for the five miles through the canyon, and each hoped to find sweet water at Bloody Gulch.

Fall in! Pep-talk time. Ranging back and forth with megaphone, Hank Skelley yelled out that this column held more boys from more states than the other columns. “We will reach Mexican Hat first or croak trying!”

“Let’s hear it for Hank Skelley!”

“Hip-hip-hooray!”

“Number one to Mexican Hat!”

Chester Skelley, Hank’s grandson and one of the most decorated scouts in the West, was called front and center to take his place alongside Hank to lead them into Six Shooter Canyon a few miles past the stream.

Chester felt faint and of throbbing heart as the pride in him swelled. He knew it was probably his grandfather’s last forced march. Getting there first would take daring. Chester knew about courage. He had fought his way back from a near-crippling childhood disease with superhuman determination.

Singing stopped as they faced the sheer walls and
narrow path of Six Shooter Canyon. A huge sign read:
CLOSED
;
DANGEROUS
;
DO NOT ENTER
, and accordion barbed wire covered its mouth.

“You sure about this?” Brad Bradley asked.

“It’s public land and we are American citizens,” Hank responded. He knew it was his last jamboree. He knew he had to get there first even though the other columns had easier routes. This five-mile push through Six Shooter would end up in legend and song.

Fifty yards in, a boulder blocked the trail. Chester scatted up, found the footings, and extended his hand to his grandfather. As the young man pulled the old master up, it became a golden instant. Their eyes met for only a blink, and their smiles were just as quick. One generation was making, one generation was taking its passage.

And on, into the valley.

The red alert phone in Wreck Hudson’s room rang unmercifully. Wreck was flung awry onto the couch, buck naked. The phone persisted. Wreck jerked the cord from the wall, threw the phone through the window, and stood up wavering.

The girls were gone. Second time this week. He’d have to see about assigning a male orderly. Like today, he was having a difficult time with the arms and legs of his clothing.

Wreck felt better when he strapped on his pearl handled pistol. Shiiiiuuuuut! He didn’t have pants on, and the pistols fell to the ground.

A pounding on his door. Wreck managed to put both legs in one pant leg and fell flat on his face as he reached for the doorknob.

“You dumb son of a bitch!” Wreck greeted Sergeant Floyd.

“Sorry, sir, I got a call from outpost number seven over the center of the canyon. Dust is rising at the far end.”

“Why didn’t you say so!”

“I tried to phone you, but…you shot up the outside phone lines last night.”

“Call all stations, a double-red alert and move all personnel to the horseshoe posts.”

“I did that, sir.”

“What the fuck—who authorized you?”

Down the corridor, Red Peterson came out of his reverie. Maud was gone, but Jesus H. Christ, did that old girl give me a time when the ’lude kicked in. Was there any way Maud could teach some of that screaming and cursing to Greta? Sometimes Greta acted like the statues she portrayed on the stairs in Vegas.

The continuous sound of a racket filled the hallway. Maud, showered and dressed, came in and nodded toward the sounds of confusion.

Wreck slammed open their door. “We’ve got a problem!”

“Well, Christ, let me get my pants on.”

“There’s dust blowing up the canyon.”

“Hey, Wreck, dust is always blowing through the canyons.”

“Maybe it’s a herd of buffalo,” Maud ventured.

“There ain’t no goddamn buffalos, and there ain’t no goddamn wind.”

“Esteemed Personage,” Grand Militia Sergeant Floyd said, “maybe it’s cattle rustled from Mexico and being hidden in the canyon.”

“I don’t think so,” Red said. “You can’t drive a herd of stolen cattle clear through the state of Arizona and into Utah without being spotted. You there, Sergeant, get Wreck’s vehicle warmed up. We’re right behind you.”

They halted on the steep trail fifty yards below a rock-strewn summit. Wreck shifted into compound low to scale the hill. The hill won.

He came to the guard post where a dozen White Wolves had gathered and screamed at them to take up positions.

Red Peterson, meanwhile, scanned through binoculars. His wise old eye always searched for the patch of black gold. “Yeah,” he said softly, “I see them. They’re taking a rest stop at Bloody Gulch.”

“Who? How many?” Wreck cried.

“Wreck,” Red said softly, “I think you’d better get down there and meet them and either turn them back or let them through. Get rid of all that crap you’re wearing and look like a rancher.”

“You dumb son of a bitch,” Wreck screamed.

Red seized him and with one hand lifted him off the ground and held him, nose to nose. “No goddamn commander is going to run troops into a box canyon in broad daylight. If this was an attack by armed forces, you’d be obliterated in five minutes. Now, you get down there.”

“You!”

“Grand Militia Sergeant Buck Jones, sir!”

“Get your ass down there and turn those people around.”

“No, sir, I ain’t going.” Jones quivered. He was silenced by Wreck’s .45-caliber slugs. Wreck turned to the other patriots, who slunk off to their posts.

Peterson led Maud a few feet away. “We’re getting the hell out of here,” he whispered. “I’m grabbing one of their Uzi guns and clean this post out. When I open fire, get down the hill and into the Land Rover. He left the keys in the ignition.”

In the next agonizing moments, the cloud of dust stirred up again and spewed. Wreck was frozen…immobile. As fast as a lizard’s tongue, Red snatched
the Uzi from a patriot and tried to slam a bullet into its chamber. It was stuck!

“You motherfucker!” Wreck Hudson screamed.

Red threw the weapon to the ground and shook his head, crying, “I brought in two hundred thousand of these guns, and I’ve got to get the one that jammed.”

“Kill the motherfuckers,” Wreck ordered.

The five other patriots poured gunfire into Red Peterson and Maud Traynor, shot up until body parts came loose.

Deep in the canyon below, the formation of Eagle Scouts closed up and tested the water in Bloody Gulch. Addition of iodine and a chemical packet would make it potable but terrible tasting.

Fortunately, the canyon walls shut out most of the sunshine and the rocks had a cooling effect on the adventurers, but it was hot!

It had been a hell of a morning! Skating over rocks, clinging to side walls—slow, torturous movement had sucked them fairly well dry in those first three miles.

Chester Skelley now limped slightly in deference to his weaker leg. His grandfather met his eyes. Both of them rolled a glance heavenward. No songs this break.

Chester Skelley knew that if they had to climb a goat trail out of Bloody Gulch, old Hank would be in some kind of trouble. Hank was chilled by the thought he had made a bad decision.

An advance party of scouts went a half mile and returned with good news that the final two-mile stretch seemed flat and friendly.

The scoutmasters argued respectfully. One of three choices: two miles up the canyon to the ranch
or take the goat trail and climb on cliff sides two thousand vertical feet, or return to Montezuma Creek and truck into the jamboree.

To turn back would be heartbreaking. Perhaps prudent, but heartbreaking. They had gotten through, thus far, without a major injury. It had nothing to do with prudence but with pride.

The other masters communicated without words the feeling that Hank Skelley could never make the high climb.

“Form up the column. We will continue down the canyon to the rear of Hudson Ranch. Double file, when possible, and tell the lads, it’s only a short way now.”

From locking fear to a mad euphoria, Wreck Hudson seemed to float over a great battlefield with mighty legions at his fingertips and an impenetrable defense…as he transformed himself into a George S. Patton.

“Here they come,” Wreck whispered. He contacted his ring of machine gun, artillery, and mortar posts.

“Christ, it looks like a division of them down there,” Floyd said.

“We take no prisoners,” Wreck replied.

On they came, an ant line trudging out of Bloody Gulch toward White Wolf.

“I don’t see no weapons,” Floyd reported.

“They’ve got their machine pistols in their backpacks.”

“Looks like some of them are wearing short pants. Hey, looks like Boy Scout uniforms.”

“It’s a disguise,” Wreck growled. “They’re either Marines or Rangers.”

Now into the steep and narrow defile. Wreck looked down on the entire double line. He rolled his
crazed eyes—he had them bagged in a deep well. “I’ve got less than twenty men…there were fifty last night at White Wolf! Where the fuck is my fucking brigade!”

“They shagged ass out of here.”

Wreck emitted his animal howl, fell to his knees, and held his face in his hands. Two patriots helped him to his feet. They were coming close, down there.

“Fire!”

Machine-gun fire crackled into the narrow rift, ricocheting off the walls like tennis balls. Some of the invaders went down!

Now they’ll know about Wreck Hudson! Glory! God! Glory! Jew plot foiled. Look at them fall! Fire! Fire! Fire!

The echoes of the bullets were as loud as the bullets, a hailstorm from four machine guns…mortars swished down and flamed and the earth bounced and heaved…now cannon fire far down range to blow the walls in and seal the canyon from retreat.

This is war! This is fucking war, man! I’ll get my Congressional Medal now!

The racket was so immense, it seemed to be a kind of rumbling that must have happened at the birth of the planet. A burst of small rocks spewed into the defile as machine gun bullets loosened them. Now the mortars fired into the narrowest part of the canyon, and down came boulders from basketball size to Greyhound size.

“Surprised you fuckheads! Look at them running around and screaming!”

A huge slab skidded down, bounced off the cliff wall and behind; rocks poured down like a waterfall.

The Eagle Scouts were trapped and machine-gunned and a blizzard of rocks poured down on them and a dozen avalanches ran amok…

…higher and higher the debris piled on the canyon floor, twenty, thirty feet…far over any scout.

Waves of concussion stirred up with angry dust and dislodged thousands more tons of rock. The waves careened through holes and fissures…

…and found the cave with eight hundred tons of dynamite.